The Climate Crisis

The handling of the COVID-19 crisis has shown that governments can take prompt evidence-based actions to protect people, livelihoods and the economy. The political will to implement drastic policies during the pandemic provides a benchmark for progressive actions to accelerate and strengthen responses to another crisis: climate change. Governments must learn from the policy gaps exposed by COVID-19 to establish better processes for using science and evidence. Applying evaluation approaches throughout policy cycles, from planning to implementation, can achieve systematic, integrated responses to climate policy; policies capable of considering different scenarios and absorbing complex evidence. Evaluations can also promote accountability and learning to identify socially just solutions and transformational approaches to addressing climate change. This briefing outlines four key ways in which evaluations can accelerate progress towards effective climate policy.